We combed through multiple medical journals looking for the latest research on the Integrative approach to kidney health. We know your time is valuable so we curated and summarized these studies for you. Welcome to Inkidney October Research and News.
Lifestyle modifications do indeed prevent CKD and delay its progression
This study is coming from Japan. Researchers found that two years of healthy lifestyle choices prevent against the development of kidney disease and protein in the urine. Lifestyle modifications also slowed the decline in kidney function.
They studied 451,534 people (277,494 men and 174,040 women) aged 20–79 years. Healthy lifestyle choices in this study were defined as: 1. No smoking 2. Healthy eating habits, and 3. Low BMI
Now, we all know that there is more to lifestyle modifications than this but this is definitely a start.
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Is Urea by itself toxic?
The authors in this study published in NDT definitely think so. They noted that the accumulation of uremic toxins is a risk factor for mortality and accelerated atherogenesis in patients with CKD. The researchers found that a post-translational protein modification called carbamylation is a predictor of CKD progression. They also noted that urea by itself promotes the carbamylation of proteins.
So urea is not just a benign marker and should be classified as a uremic toxin. The level of protein carbamylation may be used as a marker for risk stratification of CKD outcomes.
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Magnesium, bones, and kidneys… What?!
This study is coming from the dialysis world. It’s a meta-analysis that examined the effects of magnesium supplementation on chronic kidney disease mineral bone disease (CKD-MBD). As the researchers mentioned, magnesium supplementation in dialysis patients is controversial. However, this study showed that it helps by regulating calcium and parathyroid hormone and it decreases carotid intima-media thickness.
This is in the dialysis population. So paying attention to magnesium balance and supplementation may have a much better role in bone and vascular health in earlier stages of CKD. Optimizing vitamin D, vitamin K2, vitamin A, calcium, phosphorus , and magnesium is very important to improve bone and vascular health in CKD patients.
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